Fight 4 Taste

  In the last 12 years, I could not count how many thousands of dumplings I have made. These are mostly my take on the typical Chinese dumpling. The ones I usually make are famous for, homemade wrappers, home-ground pork butt, an incredible amount of bok choy, Napa cabbage, spinach, and scallion. Seasoned in fresh ginger, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and soy sauce. I also make a homemade dipping sauce that is so many things at once. I am so down with that method that I have felt like the new kid in those times that I decided to try dumplings a different way. In the process, I learned that even a leftover meal, such as the japchae can be spooned into wrappers, sealed, fried to a crispy bottom, and then steamed to finish. You won't believe how awesome this can be.  The wrapper is that blanket of love that can take something you make into a whole new place. Mandu is a Korean dumpling. These are more freestyle.  They can consist of many or even anything vegetable or meat-wise. T...

  Sometimes a course change can happen on a dime. A reality other than the one we planned on seemingly hangs from a fine thread. The storm that brought it upon us leads us to determine that the thread is made of the strongest of materials. It becomes what we are made of. Today's star is the amazing Emily Kim, born Kim Kwang-sook, but known affectionately around the world as Maangchi. Described by the New York Times as YouTube's Korean Julia Child, she owns stock in a sizable piece of my Korean culinary education. Close to a decade after this teacher/family counselor migrated to North America, she took up gaming for a post-divorce pastime. Her avatar, a small girl who fought crime with a large hammer was named Maangchi, which is Korean for hammer. In 2007 she started making videos teaching how to make authentic Korean food and for the lack of a channel name, Maangchi was born. Maangchi is what I would like to call unsinkable and in that way, the name Hammer seems just right. She...

   I have made a lot of Kimchi over the last decade. Often over five pounds at a time, like a person with a healthy Korean diet would. But I have not made it a regular part of my diet and I have to say, I do not know why. The brunch (sorry Tony Bourdain- he hated that word and the idea of it) that I made earlier had such great promise of what was to come.  It was time to decide what was for dinner. I had an 8-pound pork shoulder downstairs in the fridge. So I went for a went for a pork recipe in Robin's comic book. Jayuk Dubap (Spicy pork over rice).  So this took care of 1 pound of the pork. Talk about needing to get creative this week! It is like this in the food problem-solving department. It can be so easy, or it can be inexpensive. Rarely is it both, unless I can invest just a little bit more time. For a 46-mile round trip drive, I can buy thinly sliced pork belly, ready to use, that cost 12 times more than my other option.  Instead, I utilize an 8-pound br...

  I have seen it in my father, late at night on a mission to cook things in ways that we or others may never have thought of before. I have seen it in my sons, the call to create something they can see and taste in their minds that they just have to plate into materialization. I am the bridge of this and man, let me tell you it is really something! I cannot ignore it. I have often described my desire to cook and create like Eric Clapton's "Have You Ever Loved a Woman". Since 1999, food has been my Patti Boyd. She was the former wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton, the woman who served as the powerful inspiration for songs like Clapton's "Layla", and "Something" by the Beatles and many more by Eric and George respectively. I don't pretend to know much about Patti's life, other than her presence seemed to have a runaway train effect on the people mesmerized with her. Whether this was due to qualities within those persons or not, I do not...